Nature's calling, but we're too busy to listen

PENNSYLVANIA GAME COMMISSIONMany people need to get outdoors more and discover the wildlife living in their backyard.

I looked out my kitchen window this summer and saw a fox sitting beside my pool.

I had never seen a fox in the wild that close before. It just sat there in the early morning, watching the birds fly by — and maybe, for all I know, considering a quick dip in the water.

I have a long history with wildlife. When my family lived in another house in Susquehanna Twp., I had skunks living under my back porch as well as groundhogs beneath my shed. Then, inside my house at night, it was like an after-dark show at ZooAmerica. Bats would fly through my kitchen and living room on occasion.

The story of how I nearly grabbed a curled-up bat I thought was a discarded piece of chicken in my sink is legend.

Now living in another neighborhood of Susquehanna Twp., the wildlife has gotten bigger: foxes and deer. And I’ve traded bats for snakes, whose discarded skins I see when I sweep around my deck.

I always grumble about what I consider as the interlopers on my property, especially the kind that hang upside down or shed their skin. But the fox had me worried. Why had I suddenly seen him? Was he sick? A danger?

Turns out more and more people these days are asking similar questions about the wildlife they see in their backyards, and Cal DeBrock, director of the Bureau of Wildlife Management for the state Game Commission, hears a lot of their concerns and complaints.

Turns out DeBrock doesn’t believe there has been some epic shift in the order of living things, causing an onslaught of animals to invade our space. He has a much simpler explanation.

“Frankly, people are spending less time outside. They may not be aware of the animals around them and that may be why people feel like wildlife is encroaching.”
Certainly there are manmade reasons we see more wildlife around us. New housing developments and roads displace animals.

But that is the exception. For the most part, people are just woefully out of touch. They don’t spend enough time outdoors, let alone connecting with nature, and as a result they don’t notice that a backyard also is a habitat for animals. Folks don’t know how to live with critters without feeling they are the invaders.

DeBrock laments that schools don’t focus much on nature anymore. Many adults — let alone kids — can’t tell one tree from another and can’t fathom that there are 480 species of birds and mammals living in our state — 414 birds and 66 mammals. Let’s face it, many of us would be hard-pressed to recite 20 of them.

There is a name for this problem. It is called “Nature-Deficit Disorder,” conceived by author Richard Louv, whose book “Last Child in the Woods” laments the decreasing number of children who spend time outdoors anymore.

He has a lot to lament. A report done jointly by outdoor recreation groups a few years ago surveyed 60,000 people nationwide and found declines in youngsters participating in outdoor activities. The sharpest drop was among youth ages 6 to 12. These are the kids who are more likely to recognize an Angry Bird from mobile game fame than a ruffed grouse — from state symbol fame.

As we adults continue to have busy lives and kids spend more time with iPods, Wiis and Kindles than bikes, treehouses or leaf collections, it doesn’t bode well for all of us communing with nature.

Less time outside not only means we are less attuned to fury neighbors but we give less value to the environment. Not a good thing at a time when on the macro level we are struggling with the idea of global warming and on the micro level we need to be vigilant about Marcellus Shale drilling.

DeBrock calls it an uphill battle: “There seems to be less of an interest in the natural world.”

But at the same time, he is optimistic because when people take the time to appreciate nature they get excited about it. And the report from the outdoor recreation groups did show a slight increase in adults participating in outdoor activities. We just saw our own governor spend three days kayaking on the Susquehanna River.

It is easy to shut ourselves inside our hermetically sealed, central-air-cooled, Internet-connected homes and forget about the world outside.

But that can have terrible consequences. From not understanding the world in our backyard to not appreciating the green space we could lose if we aren’t careful.
So grab the kids and go outside and look around. That way when a fox shows up you can just enjoy the moment.